Johnson casts aside the doubts to leave rest standing

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So Ben Johnson was fooling us all the time. The three months out of competition through injury, the defeats by Carl Lewis and Calvin Smith, the careless quarter-final, where he finished third and almost went out, were all left behind as quickly as his opponents in Johnson’s primal sprint to another world 100 metres record. On Saturday, he destroyed Lewis’s pretensions to becoming the first man to defend this Olympic title successfully and brought out the best in Linford Christie.

Johnson’s 9.79sec improved by 0.04sec the world record that he set while winning the world championships in Rome last summer.